


The Moustache Maketh the Man

by CopperBreeches



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, M/M, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Silly, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBreeches/pseuds/CopperBreeches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Watson was eighteen he was blessed with a moustache. This is their story over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moustache Maketh the Man

**Author's Note:**

> Following the teaser for series 3 there has been much talk about John's moustache. And what better way to explore the concept than crack fic? Please note I am drawing on several spoilers for series 3 using fan theory and speculation though nothing too detailed.

As a child John had never really noticed the facial hair that was sported by the male members of his family. He just accepted it as normal. His father's rather delicate moustache and his grandfather’s bushy marvel that he tugged on as toddler. Even his uncle had a beard. 

Despite this familiarity with facial hair it was still a hell of a shock to wake up on his eighteenth birthday with a moustache having grown overnight. 

John had thought there was something different about his upper lip when he'd woken up. It felt odd. He'd rubbed at it, thinking maybe he'd got some toothpaste on it the night before. It was only when he looked in the bathroom mirror that he found that it wasn't toothpaste. 

“What the fu...”

Apparently growing a moustache overnight when previously you'd barely had a hint of stubble was a family trait. 

“You're a Watson you see, John,” his father had said. “When a Watson reaches a certain age he bonds with a moustache.”

“Bonds with it?” John couldn't bear to touch it, let alone bond with it. 

“It chose you, John. It's a part of you now.”

“Can I get it off?” John asked. “Just shave it?”

“It's not like that. It can't just be shaved off.”

As John found out to his cost. Merely picking the razor up induced imaginable pain. More pain than he endured when his friends saw what was now inhabiting his face. 

At university the moustache achieved a certain amount of 'cool'. It marked John out as a more developed man than his peers. Their idea of cool was a five o'clock shadow that looked more like a half past two shadow. Of course there was a drawback as John discovered a lot of young women, whilst turned on by the sight of the moustache, rapidly became less attracted once he tried to kiss them. 

“It just feels weird when we kiss, John,” they all said. 

That was when John started researching ways to try and least get the moustache off whilst he... well, got off.

It took many attempts and hours of coaxing but John managed to get the moustache off for short periods. At first he had to leave it somewhere on his body. It seemed very fond of his neck for some reason and John did go through what Mike Stamford would later call 'his scarf phase'. 

However a permanent scarf was impractical, especially in July and during a rugby match so John worked on coaxing the moustache to less visible parts of his body. The first girl he slept with after manage this got quite a fright when she checked out his chest.

Overall John learnt to live in peace with his moustache. It helped fill a void. When John was lonely or upset for whatever reason he'd let the moustache back onto his upper lip and he'd feel better, comforted. 

No-one ever questioned his rapidly growing and disappearing facial hair. The only person who knew was Mike who had found it in a matchbox once, but he kept blessedly quiet. 

When John joined the army the moustache came out less and less. He had to protect it and couldn’t risk it being damaged or injured by flying sparks or gunfire. It seemed to understand and waited. 

Then John got shot.

On being discharged John immediately went to his old source of comfort, but the moustache wouldn't move. It had greyed a little, aged a little, and was inert. No amount of coaxing would get the moustache out of the box John now kept it in. He tried in vain a few times, placing it on his lip, but the moustache would not adhere. 

John mourned it like a lost friend and sank into deeper depression.

Then he met Sherlock Holmes and for a time John forgot about the moustache. He still kept the box close but he never saw a need to open it. If he had he might have noticed how it now twitched and moved. Now John was alive and happy so was his old facial hair and it longed to be with him again.

Eighteen glorious months passed before John faced the shock and pain of losing his best friend. As he watched Sherlock jump, screaming out his name John had no idea that back in Baker Street his moustache broke out of its box.

Three weeks after Sherlock's death John briefly visited the flat. He went back to get some of his stuff out of his old room. He saw the box on the beside table ripped open and panicked. He looked for the moustache on the side, on the chair, on the bed. 

Finally he looked under the bed and in the darkness he thought he saw movement, Then he felt a familiar tingle on his lip and smiled for the first time since Sherlock had died. He felt whole again. 

He met Mary, dated her. She seemed to not mind the moustache. John didn’t let it off now. He felt that he needed it.

Then Sherlock came back and in the maelstrom of thoughts and feeling and emotions John could feel his moustache reaching for his old friend. That was when he knew. 

A few days before his and Mary's wedding John visited Sherlock and handed him a box. 

“What's this, John?” Sherlock asked, examining the box like a piece of evidence.

“Just open it.”

“Is this... your moustache? Why would you give me your moustache? Is this real?”

“You've always had part of me, Sherlock. I can't... with.. Mary... but I can give you this.”

Then, before Sherlock could say anything further, the moustache climbed of of the box and climbed onto Sherlock's hand where it curled up happily.

“Is this a life form?” Sherlock asked. “It's actually curled itself up, John. Is that a reaction to heat?”

“You can't experiment on it.”

“Why not?”

John sighed. There were so many reasons he could tell Sherlock but a demonstration was probably best. “Hit it.”

“Hit it?”

“Or pinch it, or flick it off your arm.”

Looking sceptical Sherlock brushed it off his hand with some force and it fell to the floor.

John then fell to his knees as Sherlock looked confused.

“Why are you kneeling, John?” 

“Whatever happens to the moustache happens to me,” he said “All right?”

With more tender care than John had ever seen Sherlock use he carefully picked the moustache up and placed it on his hand. “I'll take good care of it, John.”

“Make sure you do,” John said. He paused. “I trust you,” he added. 

A few weeks later John was off being a married man and Sherlock was bored. Then he noticed the box containing John's moustache and had an idea. 

Opening it he let the moustache crawl out, it was always so pleased to see him. He let it get comfortable on his palm and then gently began to stroke it. After-all if hurting the moustache affected John perhaps caressing it would as well. 

With John's moustache in his hand and an experiment (of a sort, the results would become clear later)to try Sherlock smiled and continued to stroke it. He might not have all of John but he had a big piece that counted. For that he was very grateful to the odd familial trait of Watson facial hair. 

And Sherlock and John’s moustache (which he called John as it too listened to his deductions and pronounced them brilliant, well as much as a moustache can) lived happily ever after.


End file.
